Rishabh Wuppalapati, recently-minted Jeopardy! champion and Tournament of Champions (TOC) participant from Vernon Hills, graduated with honors from Lake County’s Stevenson High and just completed his sophomore year at the University of Pennsylvania. His insider’s scoop on the full Jeopardy! experience below was edited for length.
SW Lake: So how does it feel being a three-time Jeopardy! champion and making the TOC?
Rishabh: It feels great. It happened so quickly… I really enjoyed playing, [and] meeting everyone at the TOC.
SW Lake: I remember one category from your shows was “Peak Experiences”... what was your own peak experience during your Jeopardy! run?
Rishabh: After my first game we all went to lunch break. Sitting down with all the other competitors felt amazing; [I just] relaxed and let it sink in: I just won a game! Now it's time to keep going and really get to know everyone. I had lunch with Aaron from Canada, who is a super-hilarious guy. I really enjoyed talking to him and getting to know everyone.
SW Lake: There appears to be a real community around the Jeopardy! world; participants seem to end up being connected in surprising ways.
Rishabh: [Yeah,] one of the craziest coincidences: my first game I was competing against Zoe Grobman, who it turns out had actually gone to the same high school as me and graduated 12 years ago! We found this out literally a minute before taping—which is the craziest part. And one of the other champions (the final TOC winner, Milos) was actually on my flight [in], so [the eventual winner] was the very first person I got to meet.
SW Lake: Slightly loaded question here, but: will you ever see the word “Columbia” again the same way? Seemed to cause a bit of a stir… did you notice that the British tabloid Daily Mail actually ran a “story” on that?
(Back story: Game 2’s Final Jeopardy question, category College Towns, was: “Two schools in the Southeastern Conference are located in cities with this same name but in different states.” Rishabh (legally) changed answers before time ran out in a last-second barely-legible scrawl containing the correct answer for the win.)
Rishabh: I did… The funny thing is, I had an event the night it aired. I come back to my room, and my friend is like, “Yo, you're going viral.” I'm like, “Oh, cool. What for?” And he's like, “Yeah, people on the internet are making fun of you for the way you wrote ‘Columbia.’” I originally thought [it was another town], and then the last five seconds of Final Jeopardy, I remember: “Oh, Columbia—South Carolina, Columbia—Missouri!” And I'm rushing to write Columbia as fast as possible, and the penmanship ended up being completely off. But I'm glad it all worked out in the end… as it should have, I would add.
SW Lake: Did you notice that your representative from Congress, Brad Schneider, posted congratulations on his Instagram account?
Rashibh: When I was in seventh grade in 2018, I won a national history competition, and I got to meet Representative Schneider afterwards. I also had the opportunity to work for his congressional office in 2020 and 2021. It wasn't really a “political” thing. It was more that he's my congressman, I live in his district, and I'm interested in politics. [The experience helped me] learn how politics around Lake County and Illinois work. I was really glad to see his post.
SW Lake: What was the experience like during your internship?
Rashibh: In 2020, the summer after my freshman year, [I worked] remotely. But in 2021, we had an office in Northbrook where I worked. I knew a couple of people there from my classes, and it was cool because [several] of the events were going to local parades where Mr. Schneider would be. We saw the Libertyville/Mundelein parades, and [helped] plan the route for Lincolnshire. We helped [execute details of various] congressional and campaign events. And [it was great] because, for any politician, there's the legislative side and then there's the campaign side, [where] I enjoyed seeing how he interacted with constituents… how he was really available for people to come up and talk to him about their concerns. He was just elected [Chair of the Dem Coalition] for the new congress.
SW Lake: You’re finishing up your sophomore year at Penn. What is your focus on academically?
Rashibh: I'm majoring in Math and Econ, and really enjoy both. I think about things pretty analytically. Regarding plans after college, I'm still deciding about going to law school. I definitely want to work in venture capital at some point… whether it's building my own startup company or as an investor.
SWL: As a grad from Stevenson High School; any interesting memories there?
Rishabh: Senior year was such a blur… I had a class called American Studies: it integrated AP US History and AP Language, and I really enjoyed that class because it was one of my first that felt more like a community than a class.
SWL: What was it that engendered that community?
Rishabh: There were two pods that would rotate every couple months, with around 50 people total. Each section would have friendly competitions for “cake race points”; then every couple months the section with the most points actually won a cake. There were lots of mini-competitions like that. We had one class project to create a dance, which was very fun; it was modeling Lexington and Concord, to Bunker Hill, to Saratoga, to Yorktown, in this chronological sequence, [communicated] through an interpretive dance. There were mock quizzes that were fun, too. It was just an environment that encouraged creativity and new ways to learn in a competitive atmosphere, which was really interesting.
SWL: Any shout-outs to folks back here?
Rishabh: Absolutely love to shout-out a few teachers: Mrs. Ford, Mr. Anderson, Mr. (Andrew) Conneen for helping me get into learning more about the world and politics in the United States; Dr. (Sandra) Wright, a great Econ teacher. And Mrs. (Sharyn) Powell, my third-grade teacher at Half Day School in Lincolnshire, was a big [inspiration].
SWL: How did you actually make it on Jeopardy!?
Rishabh: You know, it's a funny story. So, I was procrastinating: I had an essay due for one of my classes. I randomly was scrolling through YouTube and saw a Jeopardy episode. And then I was like, you know what? I played quiz bowl in high school. Let's just take an online test. Let's go for this thing.
I did well. I didn't think much of it. And then two weeks later I get an email saying, hey, you passed the first stage. Now we want you to take a proctored version. I took [it], did well on that, which I wasn't really expecting. And then I was told I had a mock game in a couple weeks on Zoom. We had to use pens as buzzers. I didn’t do well; there was a clue about Green Bay, [and] I'm a diehard Bears fan… I got the question wrong, and realized I needed to go a lot more slowly.
And so I wasn't expecting to make the show. Fast-forward almost a year later, I get a call and hear, hey, we want you to be on Jeopardy. I was like, oh, is this a prank call? And they're like, no—we’re with Sony Pictures Studios. And I was thrilled.
SW Lake: Do you have any advice for future contestants?
Rishabh: Give it a go. I think a lot of people could hang and do very well on Jeopardy. Alison Betts, one of my TOC competitors, also talked about this; she took the test (kind of on a whim as well) and qualified. I think it's just about taking the first step.
Once you're in the process, the one thing I did learn, and wish I did a bit better for TOC, was the signaling device. [Working] the buzzer is just as important as knowing the clues. I'd say 50% of the clues are clues that all three people know, and it comes down to who has the best reaction time. And it's not only like who's the fastest, but there's a series of lights behind each clue, and you can only ring in once those lights turn on. If you ring in too early, you're locked out for a bit, a quarter of a second, which is actually a lot more than you think. So you have to get your timing just right with the buzzer.
And then obviously, knowing the clues is really important too. You can go through old games (clues do tend to repeat); the other thing is the archives from Quizbowl. NAQT is a Quizbowl company; they run several tournaments and [provide study] resources. One that I use is called, “You Gotta Know.” Ken Jennings is actually an NAQT writer. Another I used is “Campbell's Guide,” a trivia guide of authors, presidents, elements, things like that. [From there, it was] flash-carding a lot of these terms to [establish] good recall.
SW Lake: Did you have a chance to chat with Ken Jennings offscreen or just during taping?
Rishabh: Absolutely! After every game Ken takes the time to chat with contestants about how it went, what we think we could've done better, what we wish we’d known. And it's a great time because Ken sometimes laughs, “Oh, how did you know this clue?” I remember I got one about James Carville, who’s been in the news lately… but Ken was like, “Yeah, he was Clinton's campaign manager. How did you know that one?” And I said, “Oh yeah, Mr. Conneen (Rishab’s teacher who was in college in the 90’s) mentioned him when we were talking about elections.” [Ken] gives everybody the chance to kind of decompress what just happened.
SW Lake: Anything else you want to share with the folks back in Lake County?
Rishabh: Yes: we have a strong bench… a ton of great people who know a ton of things, a ton of great quiz bowl teams. So if you're interested, if you're a huge fan of Jeopardy!, just fill out the online test.
Give it a go! We have a strong bench... a lot of people could hang and do very well on Jeopardy.
I'd say 50% of the clues are clues that all three people know; it comes down to best reaction time.